Mundane observation dome

[Warbodog]

Do you have any miscellaneous insights on the series that may be worth contemplating for a few seconds before moving on with our lives? Here are some of mine.

1. The four regulars have names that can work any way around, though this would have been more obvious if David Ross had stayed and wouldn’t work if Chris Barrie used his real name.

2. The series’ lax attitude to continuity extends to the setting. Outside of Holly’s distress calls, I don’t think three million years is mentioned all that much after series I and before VI (not sure about later years). Instead, we get the extremely fudged “dead for centuries” and “travelling for thousands of years” – not actual retcons, but suggesting a more conventional setting for casual viewers tuning in and the sort of stories they’re telling. It’s only millions when they need it to be.

3. 200 years of stasis between series V and VI means that the earlier series took place in their equivalent of the early 19th century by comparison (e.g. Blackadder the Third). Since they didn’t run into a long-lived Camille or one of her great-great-etc grandchildren, it didn’t come up.

4. Although Lister is routinely slagged off in the series, he’s spared the level of seemingly authoritative character assassination that Rimmer gets, because the audience is aligned with Lister’s viewpoint most of the time. For example, we see Kochanski Camille belittling Rimmer’s interests, but we don’t get the equivalent of Hologram Camille reacting to Lister’s pickup lines, we’re left to form our own opinions on those. This flimsy point has not been considered much beyond this single example.

5. Cat’s costumes are overwhelmingly referenced more than anyone else’s in the series, but the least discussed by fans.

6. Ace Rimmer and Duane Dibbley were so seemingly ubiquitous in canon and tie-in merchandise through the 90s (Smegazine strips, T-shirts) that they still feel overused today, even though it’s been over 20 years since they appeared. Maybe they’re allowed back after all.

7. Only series III & V and maybe XI & XII (not as familiar with those) don’t have any sense of an arc whatsoever (though IV’s minor Kryten disobedience arc was already fucked up by episode shuffling). Series III is just about the only series where no episode directly references any previous episode, but it still has the Backwards scrolling text and general references to Rimmer having died and stuff.

8. One of the series’ most famous and quoted scenes – everybody’s dead, Dave – is a straight-up 2001: A Space Odyssey homage and would have been received that way at the time, but doesn’t work like that for most people coming to the episode later on or new viewers who are young or don’t watch old films.

9. Sometimes dismissed as lightweight and gimmicky today, Backwards was designed as an innovative interactive experience to reward extracurricular effort. As well as inviting fans to work out the backwards events and filming logistics, Arthur Smith’s eugolonom is teasingly long and “you scoundrels” is clearly a cleaned-up translation gag even before you’ve heard it. Unfortunately, by the time technology caught up with the intent and the ability to reverse media files properly on home computers became commonplace, Backwards Forwards came out and everyone just cheated with the walkthrough.

Imagine the quality of the musings I left out!

Topic

[Dave]

I wonder how anyone who didn’t read the novels reconciled that explanation with this:

It’s so out-of-nowhere in the context of the TV series that they might as well have said this:

[Flap Jack]

So what, we’re supposed to believe that three women who work on the same spaceship would just choose to take a picture with each other, and then a robot would choose that picture to show people what those three women look like??? Sounds like another classic whoopsie from Mr. Grant “Lister still has an appendix after getting it removed” Naylor.

[loadoftottnumb]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

On the subject of “you killed the crew Kryten”

”it was the same on the SS Augustus” … “they all died of old age”

how does that make any sense? Kryten is working on a ship where somehow the entire crew die of old age … where were they? Why did they ever go back to Earth? And who then found Kryten for him to end up working on Nova 5?

[Unrumble]

[Dave]

On the subject of “you killed the crew Kryten”

”it was the same on the SS Augustus” … “they all died of old age”

how does that make any sense? Kryten is working on a ship where somehow the entire crew die of old age … where were they? Why did they ever go back to Earth? And who then found Kryten for him to end up working on Nova 5?

Now I want Red Dwarf: Titan to reveal that Kryten was secretly working on Red Dwarf while Lister and Rimmer first joined the JMC, and it was actually him that caused the accident that killed the crew.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Someone cleverer than me photoshop Kryten into the background of scenes in The End

[Dave]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Yes like that haha

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

It’s a blatant clue, isn’t it?

[Formica]

we’re supposed to believe that three women who work on the same spaceship would just choose to take a picture with each other,

It is quite clearly taken during the same shoot as the crew’s individual photos. They must’ve known each other already before they signed up.

[Dave]

MUGSHOT MURPHY

Kryten travels back in time and disguises himself as a photographer, arranging a headshot photoshoot for the three members of the Nova 5 crew that he knows will survive the accident, and creating pictures that are sufficiently attractive to motivate Lister, Rimmer and Cat to rescue them, thereby completing the timeloop that ensures that Kryten is picked up by the Boys From The Dwarf and joins their gang.

[Frank Smeghammer]

MUGSHOT MURPHY
Kryten travels back in time and disguises himself as a photographer, arranging a headshot photoshoot for the three members of the Nova 5 crew that he knows will survive the accident, and creating pictures that are sufficiently attractive to motivate Lister, Rimmer and Cat to rescue them, thereby completing the timeloop that ensures that Kryten is picked up by the Boys From The Dwarf and joins their gang.

[International Debris]

For a moment I had the horrible thought that I’d accidentally clicked on the Ideas for an Episode thread.

[tombow]

I just saw a photo of literary author Salman Rushdie and I thought he looked like he could play Rimmer if Chris Barrie is ever tired of the role

[Captain Bollocks]

[Captain Bollocks]

[Captain Bollocks]

[Dave]

[clem]

[Captain Bollocks]

[Captain Bollocks]

[Captain Bollocks]

Look, I’ve got a lot of time on my hands, alright? 

[Dave]

[Dave]

[Dave]

[clem]

[Dave]

I genuinely laughed out loud at that.

[Dave]

[Dave]

[Dave]

[Podey]

Just thinking about the series 1 smeg ups…. when Rimmer goes to report Lister for smoking and Barrie realises he doesn’t have (or can’t find) his notebook, does that mean they muffed up the very first scene of the entire show? 

I know stuff isn’t always filmed in order and I can’t remember right now if there was anything intended to go before that scene.

[Dave]

I’d have to check, but it would depend on whether that Smeg Up was from the reshoot of that scene that they filmed at the end of the series, or the “original assembly” version that would have been shot as part of the original filming for The End.

Edit: I just checked and it is in fact from the original shooting (as Lister has his black jacket rather than his khaki one). So you might be right!

[Unrumble]

“You left it under the chicken soup machine”

“Fuck off, Craig”.

And from there, a few years of mutual animosity was born.

[Ian Symes]

First scene of the series and he goes and blows it like a biggun.

[Future Producer of Series IX – aaaaany day now]

[Dave]

First scene of the series and he goes and blows it like a biggun.

“Smeg ups, that’s gotta be smeg ups.”

[Captain Bollocks]

[Captain Bollocks]

[Captain Bollocks]

[Ian Symes]

[Dave]

[clem]

[clem]

[Dave]

[Captain Bollocks]

[Moonlight]

First scene of the series and he goes and blows it like a biggun.

The cruelest part of the Original Assembly is the audience barely reacts to anything that’s actually in the script, but the bloopers get proper laughs. 

[Unrumble]

[Warbodog]

[Dave]

[Author]

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